Donald Trump Caught in a Very Dangerous Lie About North Korea

Donald Trump Caught in a Very Dangerous Lie About North Korea

On April 11th, Donald Trump announced that he was ordering an American aircraft carrier into the Sea of Japan, which was supposed to send a powerful message to North Korea for their provocative behavior recently. “We’re sending an armada,” Trump said.

The North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un then set off a missile test 5 days later, which wasn’t unexpected given the fact that it marked the birthday of his grandfather Kim Il-sung. However, the U.S. fleet that was supposed to be in the area had zero response. Why? Because the U.S. fleet never even went to the Korean Peninsula.

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Admiral Harry Harris, among several other members of Donald Trump’s military leadership, publicly announced that U.S. forces were on their way to the Korean Peninsula, but that never happened.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters on April 11 that the Carl Vinson was “on her way up there.” Asked about the deployment in an interview with Fox Business Network that aired April 12, President Trump said: “We are sending an armada, very powerful.”

The Washington Post and New York Times both reported extensively that the fleet was never sent to the Korean Peninsula. In fact, the U.S. fleet was nowhere near the region at all.

So, where were they? The fleet was in the Indian Ocean very close to Indonesia and Singapore, only 3,000 miles away from where the Trump administration indicated they would be.

Why would the Trump administration lie about the “armada” he was sending?

Did Trump want to trick Kim into simply thinking we were sending a fleet to scare him away from performing the missile launch, or was it that Trump wanted to trick Americans into a false sense of security that the U.S. was taking action against Kim?

Who knows for sure, but one thing is certain. What the Trump administration just did is very dangerous, as Trump will now be viewed as weak, giving Kim the notion that he can get away with whatever he wants, because Trump won’t do anything about it. Trump’s threat-card will not hold much weight going forward, bringing the prospect of war much closer to reality.